Personal computers and business computers are continually attacked by trojans, spyware, and adware, collectively referred to as “malware” or “pestware.” These types of programs generally act to gather information about a person or organization—often without the person or organization's knowledge. Some pestware is highly malicious. Other pestware is non-malicious but may cause issues with privacy or system performance. And yet other pestware is actual beneficial or wanted by the user. Wanted pestware is sometimes not characterized as “pestware” or “spyware.” But, unless specified otherwise, “pestware” as used herein refers to any program that collects and/or reports information about a person or an organization and any “watcher processes” related to the pestware.
Software is available to detect and remove pestware by scanning a system for files stored in a data storage device (e.g., disk) on a file by file basis and comparing information from each of the files with known pestware definitions. Problematically, generators of pestware are obfuscating pestware files (e.g., by encrypting and/or compressing them) so as to create pestware files that, at the very least, are very difficult to identify by comparing them with known pestware definitions. As a consequence, existing software often leaves obfuscated files in the system because of uncertainty whether the file is associated with a desired application. Accordingly, current software is not always able to scan and remove pestware in a convenient manner and will most certainly not be satisfactory in the future.